I finally managed to get enough money to upgrade my quadcopter. After some paid photo and video shooting I invested all the money in a new stylish carbon-fiber foldable frame and new propellers. The frame is again Quaternium made and has the same name with new number - Spidex V3. For the propellers I couldn't decide so I ordered 3 sets: 11x5" and 12x4.5" HQProp CF reinforced and a set of carbon-fiber 12x5" T-Motor style. It took me some time to move everything onto the new frame but now it is almost ready to fly (needs propeller balancing). The new frame is heavier than the old one but after some serious wight reduction I ended up with 60g lighter quadcopter. This will be good when adding FPV transmitter later....Continue Reading

This time a nice sunset, panoramic view closer to the city center and on the second day some fun with more speed, altitude and maneuvers. I still need to work on vibration dampening and better balancing. Another video with more dangerous flying coming soon. It will show flying through building, flying in quite a lot of fog, flying over water and near sailing ship.

I finally made the first flight I was waiting for. It wasn't the best but was fun and even scared me a few times because it was very windy and I almost crashed twice. The desire to fly my Spidex was stronger than the wind and the bad bearing and the fact that I didn't fly anything bigger than my Walkera QR Ladybird so I took the risk. Wind was around 20-25km/h with gusts of 40-50km/h sometimes. The following video shows what I experienced that day. It wasn't just a single flight by the way. I have two batteries which I recharged after 5 minutes of flying with each of them so I can have a better picture of power consumption. Then I made two more flights of 10 minutes and 14 minutes.

I was reading RCGroups for quite some time before I finally decided to register my account so I can use the search function. It was the end of 2012. I was already planning to build quadcopter and I was reading a lot of information, watching videos, checking prices and on-line shops. I knew that I was not going to be a perfect pilot and that I was going to crash probably on the first flight. This meant that I would destroy expensive model in minutes because I had no experience at all. Then I ended up with the idea to buy cheap small quadcopter so I can learn step by step. Walkera QR Ladybird V2 was my choice (the first photo). It was great tool for beginner like me. It was tough and lived through many crashes at home. At one point I was able to control it in the small rooms (I live in apartment) so I decided that it was time to take it out in the park. Said and done. One sunny and relatively calm day I took it to the park with a pack of 5 batteries. I started learning how to perform better turns as I was not limited by the walls at home. I was flying it far away between the trees and brought it back safely. I was happy this new outdoor experience. Finally with the last battery I launched it straight up. That little bug was very fast for its size. In 2 seconds it was reaching the treetops. Well that was a bad idea. The trees reduced the wind close to the ground but up there it was way too much for the little bug and I lost control. Immediately lowered the throttle and it...Continue Reading